Reading you

Today I heard the news that the oldest Bible will go  live on the internet later this week. The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book. This has been made possible by The Codex Sinaiticus Project -an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript. To read more on this see http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/

So will we discover that some of the passages we have grown to know and love so well are not quite what they should be? No doubt this will re-ignite arguments and discussions amongst scholars, and I guess soon we’ll have the Blokes Codex S or the 100 minute Codex Sinaiticus appearing in Christian bookshops? What I’d rather see is that all thinking Christians think about how they reflect Jesus to their friends, family and neighbours. After all, you could be the only bible they ever read.

Make Jesus Famous

Andy Warhol said we could all be famous for 15 minutes, but what could you do to help make Jesus better known? A new website Make Jesus Famous launches tomorrow Tuesday – 30th June. It would be brilliant if everyone who read this blogchecked it out and registered  their ‘idea’ for sharing faith in their neighbourhood. All you need to do is briefly describe your everyday work … easy! You can then upload your photo or a suitable image, and make it part of the homepage ‘image wall’.

You can pre-register at www.makejesusfamous.org.uk right now, and you will be sent a reminder email on the launch day.

Hopefully,  Christians who will inspire each other withtheir ideas, achievements and comments to spread the Good News . This in turn will build an ever-growing evangelism resource, harnessing the Christian creativity at work throughout the nation.  If you ask why does Jesus need making famous?- the answer was given in a piece of research published only a couple of days ago when it was reported that a fifth of the population  have no idea about the death and resurrection stories of Jesus.

Give it a try! Please help us Make Jesus Famous by pre-registering today. Many thanks – you will make a huge difference if you take part.

Breaking out

Jewish Christian Steve Maltz the author of ‘How the church lost the way’– is passionate about  how the roots of our faith have been damaged by the influence of Greek philosophy and culture. He suggests that the church needs to recover its roots if it is ever to fulfil its destiny, and see true and sustained revival. He makes some interesting arguments, but one thing I certainly agree with him on is his passion for the church to break out more and have a real impact on our culture, right here and now. Steve makes the point well in this passage from the chapter Redoing Religion:

” The question I now ask is, if we follow such a big God why do we cram Him into such a small box? We should let Him loose, let Him roam freely, let Him act according to His awesome nature. Of course He already does, but we act as if He lived just in ancient buildings, sports halls on a Sunday hire, or in front rooms swept clean of profane literature and embarrassing relatives…God doesn’t just live in church buildings for a couple of hours every Sunday. For a start nowhere in the bible is Church ever meant to be a building. It was the Greek Church fathers who changed things, leading to an idea that any expression of Christianity is best confined to a meeting place rather than the people who meet there. Whereas Jesus tells us to go out into the world to preach His Gospel, we have ending up telling the world to come into Church, to find Jesus there. And what does the world really find when it goes there?”

This morning I am off to talk to a group of Christians meeting in a hired-community centre who want to have their own Church building..interesting.

My earlier blog about Steve’s work can be found at https://unfinishedchristian.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/losing-our-way/

The inescapable call

Over the past few months I have listened to scores of people about the nature of how God calls us into ministry and service. I have personally found it really unsettling experiencing God  guiding me into situations in which I am personally uncomfortable; yet  once there -channeling something of God’s purpose and love to others. It has been a process of breaking me down and rebuilding me, slowly and gradually to appreciate that when I do things in God’s strength rather than mine amazing things can happen out of simple conversations. It has made me realise just how unfinished I am as a Christian, and also how complacent I have been for decades. I know that I still don’t take enough risks for the gospel. I now appreciate that feeling challenged and unsettled is something I have to get used to as I work out, if I can, the nature of  God’s inescapable call.

Nick Fawcett puts this well in his Daily Prayer book- a constant companion of mine:

“Gracious God, I thanks you for your call: the invitation to be part of the work of your kingdom. I thank you that you welcome me as I am- with all my faults and doubts- and that though I fail you repeatedly, still you want to use me in your service. Gracious God, I praise you for that inescapable sense of call that you give; help me to respond. In the name of Christ. Amen.”

I hope this is a prayer we can all say.

God Goss

 In the UK just 18 of the more than 300 commercial radio stations broadcast a regular religious show, an all-time low for on-air spiritual content, according to Whistling Frog Productions. This past  week I was at a conference which was focusing on the impact church and faith issues can have within a media culture obsessed by celebrity. Maybe God goss.com  provides part of the answer. God Goss.comis a new and developing brand based around a weekly, one-minute “showbiz”-style bulletin of fun and serious religious and Christian news.  It aims to amuse, inform  and give faith a bit of a fairer press than it sometimes gets.  At the moment the bulletin is broadcast on Heart 103 and Heart 96.3 Cambridge and Bristol- you can check out the sound files yourself at http://www.godgoss.com/ 

If you can see a use for GodGoss.com in helping to gossip the gospel on your local radio station then get in touch and I’ll pass on your comments to the team. If it’s not the sort of thing that appeals to you, but you can see the impact it can achieve then please add the GodGoss.com team to your prayer list.

The Banksy Christ

The mysterious undercover graffiti artist Banksy has infiltrated  Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery this week and filled it with more than 100 of his iconoclastic creations. The grand vaulted Georgian galleries more used to hosting  renaissance and impressionist masterpieces now give way to Banksy’s modern, humorous and controversial creations. Visitors to the exhibition, which is free and lasts until August, will be greeted in the foyer by a burnt out ice cream van, the remains of giant melted cornet running down its roof. A dummy riot policeman wearing a balaclava and a badge saying Metropolitan Peace is making his getaway from the carnage on a fairground horse. Exhibits have been infiltrated into the galleries alongside the museum’s own works of art. In one typically Banksian pun Dorothy and Toto from the Wizard of Oz are painted on a sheet of rusting iron with a speech bubble saying: “I don’t think we’re on canvas any more.”

There are digs at contemporary culture, including an original Damian Hirst spot painting defaced by a rat with a paint roller. A stencilled picture shows a starving African orphan holding a bucket saying: “Peaches Geldof – please give generously.”

The installations have had a mixed reception. It’s hard to be neutral about Banksy- you love him or hate him. The exhibition made me think of the shock waves that Jesus would have created amongst the religious establishment as he took his parables and teachings to people and place that were frowned upon by the religious establishment of the day. Banksy makes us think about what art is and how it connects with the reality of life, politics, values and popular culture: Jesus does much the same thing in relation to God. He seemed to be out of place in the synagogue and temple- always making shock waves and causing controversy. He also connected through humour, irony, vivid imagery and also kept his identity under wraps for most of his ministry and was hugely popular. Some of our churches have taken on the style and feel of an establishment art gallery and our Banksy Christ seems to have left the building for good. The tragic thing is that some our Christian curators  seem really pleased.

Idealism -the new realism and elightenment

The keynote speaker at the conference I have been attending this week was The Attorney General, the Rt Hon the Baroness Scotland QC who spoke on the importance of faith in the public space. She was clear and positive about the role individuals and faith groups have to play in a society in which she said “faith flourishes when respect for it is freely given by individuals and it is not just defended by public institutions.” She added that faith matters in the public space and it has the potential to make or break the modern world we live in when it is too often misunderstood to the point where it provides fertile ground for conflict and intolerance. Baroness Scotland, a Roman Catholic,  shared how she has worn her cross every day of her adult life and often prays when on the front bench as well as before taking major decisions. Inspired by the vision of President Obama she that with  faith inspired idealism it is a case of,  “Yes we can and yes we must- the cultivation of respectful, positive relationships between the faith communities is vital. It is important that people gather around a common purpose for a concrete outcome.”

She slammed religious extremism as diminishing God. “He is not a God of one group but God of all and faith is not an optional extra. It goes right through you and is reflected in everything you do and aspire to achieve.” It’s hard to imagine the Christian faith having a better and more well-placed advocate in politics and the public space than Patricia Scotland.

Losing our way

A few weeks ago a met a Jewish Christian called Steve Maltz and he gave me a copy of his book ‘How the church lost the way’– a fascinating argument about how the Way of the early church has been obscured by the influence of Greek philosophy which has worked its way through every facet of our Christian life, from doctrine to rituals and from practices to attitudes. Steve does a great job in taking the reader on a journey back to the roots of the Christian faith with a compelling simplicity and invites us to consider the implications of boxing in our faith to ritualistic church attendance and hymn singing. To get the full flavour of Steve’s argument you’d have to read the whole book for yourself but here’s a brief taster to wet your appetite:

” To a religious Jew everything is spiritual, everything is theological, everything is sacred. Life is not compartmentalised…the key distinction between  Greek thinking that has insinuated itself  into all parts of the Church thinking and practice…Jesus once had a spat with a Samaritan woman about acceptable ways to worship God. He spoke to here of  future time when true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, so worship is going to have to be infused in spirit and in truth. It needs to be of a spiritual nature because God is spirit, but it needs to be based on truth..The Western Church has evolved into a rigid pattern whereby the phrase we will move to a time of worship is a cue for throats to be cleared, brains emptied of the mundane and legs and arms placed on standby and praise and worship is understood as a musical genre. It puts God in a box and misrepresents him as someone who can only be worshipped in recognised spiritual ways, such a sprayer, singing and proclamation. Hebrew worship frees us up totally to worship him using every part of our created being, body and soul with our arms, legs, voice, mind and spirit.”

All I know is that these arguments will run and run as people strive for the authentic model for Christian community and worship. While we do , just let’s remember He is the God of Jew and Greek and Brit and African and American and Indian and Chinese and Australian and so on and so on until the ends of the earth and for all time.  I am sure we are getting parts of our worship and understanding wrong and we have missed out on much, but thank God for the Good Shepherd who never gives up on the strays who have lost their way and thank God that we can keep asking questions and discovering more of Him each day. Steve’s idea about everything being spiritual and there being nothing out of bounds for God is also echoed by teaching minister Rob Bell. See this brief excerpt from his film Everything is spiritual and judge for yourself:

A glorious mystery

Today is Trinity Sunday when the Christian Church has a focus on how God has reveled himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is a sticking point of Christian doctrine that prevents many engaging fully with the faith- they simply can’t get their head around this glorious mystery. How can one person become three and why and where and when?  I am not a learned theologian and have not answers to this mystery that will give doubters the answer that they seek- it simply doesn’t make logical sense- but that doesn’t make it any less real does it? As Nick Fawcett writes in his prayer for Trinity Sunday in Daily Prayer:

 “It reminds us of a truth we cannot afford to forget: that God is beyond the human intellect, defying expression, greater than we can ever conceive. We cannot explain how the pieces fit together but we know that they do, for we have experienced the truth ourselves. If we imagine that we have solved the mystery and that the full wonder of God is firmly in our sights, then it is time to think again, for if we ever think that, then the truth is that we have lost sight of him altogether. Sovereign God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. teach me to live with mystery, and simply to celebrate each day my many experiences of your love. Amen.”

So God not one person but a community of persons made one through their mutual love. The mystics and theologians have speculated long and abstractly on these matters, and we continue to do so until God settles the issue. In the meantime lets draw meaning and inspiration and give thanks by using the words of  the peace for Trinity Sunday:

Peace be to you from God our heavenly Father. Peace from his Son Jesus Christ who is our peace. Peace from the Holy Spirit, the life-giver. The peace of the triune God be always with you. And we continue to give you thanks because you have revealed the glory of your eternal fellowship of love with your Son and with the Holy Spirit three persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendour, yet one God ever to be worshipped and adored.

May you discover peace, comfort and inspiration this Trinity Sunday and see more of the glorious oneness of love, mystery and hope.

New Commandments

The Mirror Newspaper reported this week  that  a quarter of 11 to 16-year-old Britons cannot recall ANY of the Ten Commandments, according to a recent poll. Apparently  just one in 17 adults and teenagers could recite all 10. And many were left baffled by the language of the Old Testament rules. Most of the 1,000 questioned for the survey commissioned by computer game makers Electronic Arts said there should be modern commandments such as “protect the planet”.

A  few years ago the Methodist Church  and Ship of Fools ran a competition to find a new 11th commandment and the winners suggested the following:The 11th Commandment initiative was designed by The Methodist Church’s 20s and 30s Group, and seeks to reach out to the “missing generation” of under-40s to discover what matters to them and what they think about God.In the current climate a few MPs made their own suggestion- “Thou shalt not get found out!”

Thou shalt not worship false pop idols
Thou shalt not kill in the name of any god
Thou shalt not confuse text with love
Thou shalt not consume thine own body weight in fudge
Thou shalt not be negative

Among the runners-up were: Thou shalt not…

… dump your lover by text… covet thy neighbour’s iPod… dance like your dad… marry unless truly in love… change allegiance if your football team is relegated… hold loud conversations on thy mobile in a public place… condemn thy neighbour for having different beliefs… use faith to hide from reality… use plastic to multiply your possessions… shrink-wrap cucumbers… pretend to have no change when asked to donate to charity.

And also: Thou shalt…

… commit random acts of kindness… respect the earth… indicate at roundabouts… smile at the person opposite.

The overall winner, Andrew Shaw, 21, a student from Essex, thought it had been “a good idea to take the discussion into pubs”. His commandment, “Thou shalt not worship false pop idols”, is particularly topical. “Celebrities are the golden calves of today,” he said. “They do not serve any purpose other than to be idolized”.